Canadian
Victims of the State

Alberta, Canada

Richard McArthur

Jan 24, 1986

Richard McArthur was convicted of the
stabbing murder of a fellow inmate at the Drumheller Penitentiary. Following McArthur's conviction he met four witnesses in regard to the
stabbing while serving time at the Edmonton Institution. They informed him
of what they knew about the stabbing, explaining their earlier denial of
knowledge to Drumheller investigators was because they did not want to get
involved. These witnesses supported McArthur's contention that he killed
the deceased in self-defence. Three of these witnesses saw the deceased,
armed with a knife, go to McArthur's cell shortly before the stabbing
incident. Based on this new evidence, the Alberta Court of Appeal
overturned his conviction. Since McArthur had already served the minimum
time for his conviction and the crown did not wish to retry him, the Court
also ordered his acquittal. (R.
v. McArthur) [8/09]

British Columbia, Canada

Corey Robinson

July 24, 1992 (Richmond)

Corey Lawrence Robinson was twice
convicted of the murder of his neighbour and close friend, Lori Aiston. He
was sentenced both times to a term of 10 years. Aiston was repeatedly
stabbed, kicked, and beaten in her apartment on Colonial Drive in Richmond,
then dragged and left to bleed to death on her two-year-old daughter's bed. Her daughter was in the apartment with her the whole time, unable to do
anything but watch. The general details of the case give little reason to
suspect Robinson's involvement in the murder. The only evidence ever found
linking Robinson to the scene of the crime was a microscopic amount of his
DNA detected under Aiston's fingernails. DNA found on a bloody paper towel
found at the scene did not belong to either Aiston or Robinson. It was only
after a “so-called” confession made following heavy interrogation by Sgt.
Don Adam, in December 1994, that the police were able to lay a charge. In
2003, the British Columbia Court of Appeal dismissed Robinson's conviction
on the grounds there was never any evidence to arrest him in the first
place. (Now)
(R. v. Robinson) [4/09]

Manitoba, Canada

Thomas Sophonow

Dec 23, 1981 (Winnipeg)

Thomas Sophonow was convicted of murdering
16-year-old Barbara Stoppel. Stoppel was working at the Ideal Donut Shop
when twine was placed around her neck and she was strangled. Sophonow's
first trial resulted in a mistrial, but he was convicted at his second and
third trials. However, the Manitoba Court of Appeal acquitted him in 1985. In June 2000, the Winnipeg Police announced that Sophonow was not
responsible for the murder and that another suspect had been identified. In
2003, Sophonow was awarded $2.6 million in compensation. (R.
v. Sophonow) (Inquiry
Report) (FJDB)
[1/07]

Manitoba, Canada

James Driskell

June 16, 1990 (Winnipeg)

James Patrick Driskell was convicted of the murder of
Perry Dean Harder. Harder, age 29, was last seen outside his rooming
house in a pickup truck. His decomposed body was found three months
later in a shallow grave just outside Winnipeg near Brookside Boulevard and
Logan Avenue on Sept. 30, 1990. He had been shot three times in the
chest. Driskell and Harder had been involved in a chop shop operation
which was raided in 1989. They were jointly charged in a series of
break-and-enters following the raid. Driskell said he had nothing to
do with the criminal activity. But according to police Harder named
him as an accomplice. Five days before the preliminary hearing into
those charges, Harder disappeared. The Crown's theory was that
Driskell had committed the murder in order to prevent Harder from testifying
against him.Read More by Clicking Here

Manitoba, Canada

Cody Klyne

Sept 4, 2006

Cody Klyne was convicted of dangerous
driving and flight from police. His conviction was based on the eyewitness
testimony of two police officers who only momentarily saw the car's driver. In Aug. 2007, the Manitoba Court of Appeal ruled that the officers'
identification was too unreliable to support Klyne's conviction, and
overturned the conviction. (Winnipeg
Free Press) (R.
v. Klyne) [1/08]

New Brunswick, Canada

Erin Walsh

Aug 12, 1975 (St. John)

Erin Walsh was convicted of the second
degree murder of Melvin Eugene “Chi Chi” Peters, an African Canadian. The
crown alleged that Walsh's motive in the killing was racial animosity. They
did not consider that he grew up in a housing project surrounded by African
Canadians. Walsh claimed that Donald McMillan, David Walton, and Peters
twice attempted to rob him of his money and drugs. He testified that after
their first attempt, he managed to escape, and ran to some nearby CNR
workers, begging them to call the police, which they did. When he then tried
to make his way to his car to escape, the would-be robbers found him again. This time they forced him into the front, middle seat of his car at
gunpoint. Walsh struggled for possession of the gun, but ultimately it ended
up in the hands of McMillan, where it discharged and killed Peters. There
was no evidence to corroborate Walsh's testimony. The crown had McMillan
and Walton testify to a different story. Following Walsh's conviction, he
spent the next twenty years in prison.

In 2003, Walsh wrote to the New Brunswick
Provincial Archives and received the complete crown file of his case. In it
were reports that were completely exculpatory of him and which supported his
version of events: (1) Less than an hour after the fatal shooting, a St.
John police officer heard one of the robbers, Walton, ask the other robber,
McMillan, why he shot Peters. (2) A local store owner stated that the
shells used in the gun were purchased one day before McMillan said they were
purchased, when Walsh was a thousand miles away from St. John. (3) Seven
witnesses signed statements attesting that Walsh ran away from McMillan,
Walton, and Peters after they had attempted to rob him at gunpoint just
prior to forcing him into the car. These witnesses supported Walsh's claim
that he asked people to call the police just 10 minutes before Peters was
shot. In Mar. 2008, after a Federal Justice and the NB Attorney General
agreed that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, the Court of Appeals
quashed Walsh's conviction. (CBC) (Walsh
v. NB) [6/08]

New Brunswick, Canada

George Pitt

Oct 2, 1993 (St. John)

George Pitt was convicted in 1994 of the
rape and murder of his six-year-old stepdaughter, Samantha Dawn Toole. Samantha was found dead behind her home at the edge of the Saint John
River. The key evidence against Pitt was that he was washing a comforter at
four in the morning. Biological evidence that was not tested before trial
has since been tested and such tests clear Pitt. Pitt is still imprisoned
as of 2006, serving a life term. (Ottawa
Citizen) (R.
v. Pitt) [9/06]

Newfoundland, Canada

Ronald Dalton

Aug 16, 1988 (Gander)

Ronald Dalton was convicted of the
strangulation murder his wife Brenda. Dalton got a retrial because forensic
evidence indicated that Brenda choked to death on dry cereal. At his
retrial in 2000, Dalton was acquitted. (IB)
(FJDB) [1/07]

Newfoundland, Canada

Gregory Parsons

Jan 1, 1991

Gregory Parsons was convicted in 1994 of
murdering his mother, Catherine Carroll. Carroll had been stabbed 53
times. Parsons was sentenced to life imprisonment. His mother's
psychiatrist and friends recalled her saying that her son, 19, had
threatened her life. Two years earlier Parsons been part of a band that
sang a song called “Kill, kill, kill,” about children killing their
parents. In addition Carroll had allegedly once sought a restraining order
against her son.

In 1998 the Newfoundland Supreme Court acquitted Parsons
after DNA tests proved he could not have been the killer. Years later,
following an undercover sting operation, police got Brian Doyle, a childhood
friend of Parsons, to confess to the crime. Doyle pleaded guilty to the
crime in 2002 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Parsons was awarded
$650,000 in 2002 and another $650,000 in 2005 for his wrongful conviction
and imprisonment. (CBC)
[4/09]

Newfoundland, Canada

Randy Druken

June 12, 1993

Randy Druken was convicted of murdering
his girlfriend, Brenda Young. This conviction was overturned after a
jailhouse informant recanted his story, claiming that police had bullied him
into making it. DNA testing was then done on a cigarette which was believed
to have come from the killer. That testing established that cigarette had
not be used by Druken. In 2000, the Crown stayed the charge against Druken
rather than proceed with a new trial. Evidence came to light in 1998 that
Druken's brother Paul was the actual murderer, and it was established he had
been with Brenda at the time of her death. (FJDB)
[1/07]

NW Territories, Canada

Herman Kaglik

Convicted 1992, 93 (Inuvik)

Herman Kaglik, age 35, was convicted of
raping his 37-year-old niece due to her testimony. He was sentenced to four
years in prison. After he had served a year of prison the niece then
charged him with additional rapes. Kaglik was convicted of the additional
rapes and sentenced to an additional six years prison. In 1996, DNA tests
excluded him as a possible assailant of his niece. In 2000, he was awarded
$1.1 million in compensation for his two wrongful convictions. (Ottawa
Citizen) [1/07]

Nova Scotia, Canada

Donald Marshall, Jr.

May 28, 1971 (Sydney)

Donald Marshall, Jr. was sentenced to life
imprisonment for murdering his friend Sandy Seale. The two had been walking
in Sydney's Wentworth Park when a stranger stabbed Seale in the belly for
little apparent reason. Seale died the next day. Marshall was a Mi'kmaq
Indian and Seale was a black. Both were 17 years of age. Marshall spent 11
years in jail before being acquitted in 1983. A witness came forward to say
he had seen another man stab Seale. Marshall was awarded a lifetime pension
of $1.5 million. (Info) [7/05]

Ontario, Canada

Steven Truscott

June 9, 1959

Steven Murray Truscott was sentenced to
death for the murder of his 12-year-old schoolmate, Lynn Harper. Harper
disappeared near RCAF Clinton, an air force station, a few miles south of
Clinton, Ontario. Truscott and Harper were 7th grade classmates at the same
school. On the early evening of June 9, 1959, Truscott, then 14, gave
Harper a ride on the crossbar of his bicycle from the vicinity of the school
and the two traveled north along Country Road. Truscott maintained that he
dropped her off unharmed at the intersection of Country Road and Highway 8. He said she told him she had squabbled with her parents and planned to hitch
a ride somewhere. He said that after dropping her off he looked back and
saw that a vehicle had stopped and that Harper was in the process of
entering it. Harper's father reported her missing at 11:20 p.m. that
evening.

Two days later Harper was found in a
wooded lot off of Country Road. She had been raped and murdered. Within
hours Truscott was arrested and charged with Harper's murder. At trial, all
evidence against him was circumstantial and centered on placing Harper's
death within a narrow time frame which implicated him. A pathologist
testified that Harper died between 7:00 and 7:45 p.m. – an extremely precise
determination even by today's forensic standards. Years later, the
pathologist would amend his testimony and place Harper's death within a
12-hour time frame. Truscott was convicted and sentenced to hang, but four
months later his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1966,
Isabel LeBourdais rekindled interest in the case by publishing The Trial
of Steven Truscott in which she argued that Truscott had been convicted
of a crime he did not commit. In 1969, Truscott was released on parole and
in 1974 the National Parole Board released him from the terms and conditions
of his parole.

In 2000 interest in the case was again
revived after a documentary on Truscott appeared on CBC's The Fifth
Estate. Subsequently, journalist Julian Scher published a book on him
entitled Until You Are Dead. Both of these sources suggested that
significant evidence in favour of Truscott had been ignored at his trial. In 2001, lawyers filed an appeal to have the case reopened. In 2007, the
Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted Truscott, and in 2008, Truscott was
awarded $6.5 million for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment. (CBC)
[7/08]

Ontario, Canada

Romeo Phillion

Aug 9, 1967 (Ottawa)

Romeo Phillion was convicted of the murder
of Leopold Roy. Roy, 48, was stabbed to death on Aug. 9, 1967 at the
Churchill Court Apartments located at 275 Friel St. in Ottawa. Roy worked
for the Ottawa Fire Department and was also superintendent of the
apartments. The killer had some claim to have acted in self-defence as Roy
had assaulted him merely because his behavior was suspicious.Read More by Clicking Here

Ontario, Canada

Gary Staples

Dec 1969 (Hamilton)

Gary Staples was convicted of the murder
of Gerald Burke. Burke was shot to death in the cab he drove while parked
behind an industrial plant on Dunbar Ave. in Hamilton, ON. Staples'
conviction was based on the testimony of his jilted ex-girlfriend who in
exchange for leniency on robbery charges said Staples confessed to the
shooting. Staples won an acquittal on appeal in 1972. He was officially
cleared in 2002, after a retired judge and two law students found police had
suppressed evidence of two witnesses whose testimony would have acquitted
him. The Hamilton police force sent him a written apology. Staples also
received an undisclosed amount of cash. (Info)
(IB) (CBC)

Ontario, Canada

Guy Paul Morin

Oct 3, 1984

Guy Paul Morin was tried twice for the
killing of nine-year-old Christine Jessop, his next door neighbor. Jessup
was abducted from her Queensville home on Oct. 3, 1984. Her lifeless body
was found on Dec. 31, 1984 some 33 miles away in the Durham Region. The
body's decomposition was consistent with her death occurring near the time
of her abduction. Morin was arrested in Feb. 1985, and acquitted at trial
in Feb. 1986. The prosecution, however, appealed the acquittal and had it
overturned. Morin was again arrested 5 months after his acquittal and
convicted at retrial in 1992. At both trials the crown employed jailhouse
informants to fill in gaps in its case. DNA tests exonerated Morin in 1995,
and he was later awarded $1.4 million in compensation. A book was written
about the case entitled Redrum The Innocent by Kirk Makin. (Champion)
(IB)
[12/05]

Ontario, Canada

Rodney Cain

Apr 7, 1985 (Toronto)

Rodney Cain was convicted of murdering
Joel Willis outside an after-hours club located at 566 St. Clair Ave. West
in Toronto. Cain's conviction was overturned in May 2004 because of new
evidence that strongly suggested Cain acted in self-defence. Cain is
currently free on bail while a court decides whether to order a new trial or
exonerate him. (Canoe)
(R.
v. Cain, 2006) (The
Star) [12/05]

Ontario, Canada

Michael McTaggart

Convicted 1987

Michael McTaggert was convicted in 1987 of
armed bank robbery. In 1990, his conviction was reversed after it was
discovered that while he was jailed, robberies continued by the same robber
that McTaggert was alleged to have been. In 2000, evidence was revealed
that two bank tellers had identified another man as the robber, and the
prosecution had concealed this information from McTaggert's defence. In
2001, McTaggert was awarded $380,000 in compensation for his 20 months of
imprisonment. (IB)
[1/07]

Ontario, Canada

Peter Frumusa

Aug 22, 1988 (Niagara Falls)

Peter Frumusa was convicted of murdering
Richard and Annie Wilson, a married couple. The victims were found dead in
their beds and died as a result of blows to their heads. No murder weapon
was found. There was no evidence of forced entry to their house, or of
robbery or vandalism. Since Richard's wallet and money were found close to
his body, robbery appeared not to be a motive and the killings were thought
to be executions.Read More by Clicking Here

Ontario, Canada

Cumberland Four

Jan 16, 1990 (Cumberland)

Robert Stewart, Richard Mallory, Richard Trudel, and James
Sauvé were convicted of the murders of 24-year-old Michel Giroux and his
27-year-old pregnant common-law wife, Manon Bourdeau. The victims were
shot to death at their home on Queen Street in the Ottawa suburb of
Cumberland. Stewart and Trudel were distribution-level drug dealers
while Mallory and Sauvé were their enforcers. Giroux was a
retail-level drug dealer. According to the Crown, Giroux owed money to
Stewart and Stewart ordered his killing as an example to other drug dealers
who owed him money.Read More by Clicking Here

Ontario, Canada

Robert Baltovich

June 19, 1990 (Toronto)

Robert Baltovich was convicted in 1992 of murdering his
22-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, even though her body was never
found. Bain was last seen Tuesday June 19, 1990 on the University of
Toronto's Scarborough Campus. Her car was found the following Friday,
parked at an auto body shop near campus. Blood was pooled on the floor
in the back, suggesting she was murdered.

No physical evidence connects Baltovich to the alleged murder. According to the crown, Baltovich killed Bain by 7 p.m. on the day of her
disappearance. However, Baltovich was seen waiting to meet her outside
a 9 p.m. class that she took. The crown also argued that Baltovich
drove Bain's car after 1 a.m. Friday morning to Lake Scugog, an hour's drive
north of Toronto. He then allegedly buried her body in the mud of the
lake before returning to Toronto by 6 a.m. However, Baltovich
reportedly could not drive Bain's car because it had a manual transmission.

Since Baltovich's conviction, his lawyers have argued that
serial killer Paul Bernardo is a stronger suspect than Baltovich in Bain's
murder. At the time of Bain's disappearance, Bernardo was known as the
Scarborough rapist. An award winning book called No Claim to Mercy by
Derek Finkle was written about Baltovich's case in 1998. Following a
hearing in September 2004, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial,
citing an unfair and unbalanced charge to jury during the first trial. At retrial in 2008, the crown presented no evidence and urged the jury to
acquit Baltovich, which the jury promptly did.

The crown's sudden decision not to retry Baltovich was
apparently prompted by one of its witnesses. Four days before the
retrial, the victim's father, Rick Bain, told the crown that his daughter
told him of an imminent rendezvous with Baltovich on the day of her murder. Since the witness had never mentioned this conversation before, he
presumably was planning to perjure himself in an effort to convict
Baltovich. Disclosure rules forced the crown had to inform the defence
of the conversation. Even if the witness stuck to his previous
testimony, the defence could use his reported conversation to undermine his
credibility. (IB)
(Wiki) [4/08]

Ontario, Canada

Bill Mullins-Johnson

June 27, 1993 (S. S. Marie)

Bill Mullins-Johnson was convicted of
sodomizing and strangling his four-year-old niece, Valin Johnson, who was
found dead in her bed. His conviction was based on the testimony of Dr.
Charles Smith, whose handling of 40 suspicious child deaths since 1991 is
currently under review. Two experts, including Ontario's chief pathologist,
now say Valin was never sexually abused or strangled. They argue she in
fact died of natural causes, possibly from choking on her own vomit caused
by a chronic stomach ailment. Mullins-Johnson was freed on bail in Sept.
2005 pending the results of a federal review of his case. In Oct. 2007, the
Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted Mullins-Johnson of all charges. (National
Post) [12/05]

Ontario, Canada

Tammy Marquardt

Oct 9, 1993

Tammy Marquardt was convicted of the
murder of her 2-year-old son, Kenneth. Marquardt said she woke from a nap
to find Kenneth tangled in his bed sheets and when she freed him he wasn't
moving. However, a pathologist, Charles Smith, testified that Kenneth had
died from asphyxia after being smothered or strangled. Smith's findings
were subsequently rejected by six forensic experts, including Newfoundland
and Labrador's chief medical examiner, Dr. Simon Avis, who said Kenneth, an
epileptic, could have died from a seizure. Another expert, Dr. Pekka
Saukko, said Smith's conclusions in Marquardt's case were “illogical and
completely against scientific evidence based reasoning.” Marquardt had
rejected a plea bargain that would have given her a five-year sentence for
manslaughter.

The Office of the Chief Coroner for
Ontario found that Smith made serious errors in 20 of 45 criminally
suspicious deaths he investigated between 1991 and 2001. Smith's findings
led to homicide charges against parents and caregivers, many of which were
unwarranted. In early 2009, Marquardt was the last person included in a
review of of Smith's work still behind bars. She has maintained her
innocence and said she discovered her son struggling and tangled in a bed
sheet after he called out to her from a bedroom. Marquardt was released on
bail in Mar. 2009 and her conviction was quashed in Feb. 2011. The
pathologist, Dr. Charles Smith, was stripped of his license to practice
medicine in Ontario. (Toronto
Star) (Ottawa
Citizen) (The
Record) [3/09]

Ontario, Canada

Dimitre Dimitrov

Feb 21, 1996 (Vanier)

Dimitre Dimitrov was convicted in 1999 of
murdering his friend and landlord, Hristo Veltchev, 37. Veltchev's body was
found in a public parking lot, stuffed in the trunk of his car. Evidence
indicated that he had been bludgeoned to death in the garage of his house. Dimitrov's conviction was based on expert testimony that his feet matched
impressions found inside a pair of bloody boots at the victim's house. The
boots were found in a front hall closet in the house. The closet was used
by all the boarders of the house including Dimitrov. Apart from the
expert's testimony, there was no evidence Dimitrov owned or had worn the
boots. A retrial was ordered in 2003 after a court ruled that the
impression evidence was inadmissible to establish positive identification
unless it was accompanied by corroborating evidence. At retrial in 2004,
DNA test results were presented, which showed that the blood on the boots
belonged neither to the victim, nor to Dimitrov, nor to anyone else known to
have entered the house. Dimitrov was acquitted. He had spent 4 1/2 years
imprisoned. (JD)
[5/08]

Quebec, Canada

Benoit Proulx

Oct 25, 1982 (Ste. Foy)

Benoit Proulx was convicted in 1991 of murdering his
ex-girlfriend, 19-year-old France Alain. Alain, a University of Laval
student, was shot in the hip near the CHRC radio station in Sainte-Foy. She died a short time later. Proulx was a reporter at the station and
had been working the night of the murder. In 1986 the case file was
closed as the coroner was unable to establish any contact between Proulx and
Alain on the night of the murder.

Subsequently, Proulx launched a defamation suit against a
radio station and a retired police investigator for comments they made
concerning his guilt. In 1991, in the midst of this suit, the suit
defendants advised the prosecution of a potential new witness. The
witness claimed that after seeing Proulx's photo in the newspaper, he
recognized Proulx's eyes as being the eyes of a bearded man he saw near the
crime scene on the night of the murder. The witness could not at first
formally identify Proulx. Nevertheless he identified Proulx at trial
and Proulx was convicted. In 1992, the Quebec Court of Appeal quashed
the conviction due to serious trial irregularities. It also noted that
the presented evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. The
court entered a verdict of acquittal.

Following his acquittal, Proulx sued the Attorney General of
Quebec for malicious prosecution and won a judgment of $1.15 million. However, the judgment was reversed on appeal. Proulx was awarded $1.6
million for his wrongful imprisonment. (IB)
(Proulx
v. Quebec) [4/08]

Saskatchewan, Canada

David Milgaard

Jan 31, 1969 (Saskatoon)

David Milgaard was convicted of the rape
and stabbing murder of Gail Miller, a Saskatoon nursing aide. In 1992, the
Canadian Supreme Court freed Milgaard after he spent 23 years in prison. Five years later, DNA tests of physical evidence confirmed Milgaard's
innocence. In 1999, the true killer, Larry Fisher, was convicted of
Miller's murder. In the same year, Milgaard was awarded $10 million in
compensation for his wrongful imprisonment. (CM)
(IB)
(Mention)
[5/05]